University Orthopaedic Associates’ Dr. Timothy Hosea co-authored with other orthopaedic experts a paper exploring the incidence of low back pain in young rowing athletes. The paper has been published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine and was presented at the IOC World Conference on Prevention of Injury and Illness in Sport in Monte-Carlo this past April.

With low back pain increasing among young athletes in all sports, a better understanding of spinal pathology can help improve the design of injury-prevention strategies. Dr. Hosea and his co-authors, including UOA Research Coordinator Patricia Seuffert, examined whether rowing athletes with lower back pain have a higher likelihood of degenerative disc disease than athletes in other sports. They reviewed the medical records of 199 interscholastic, intercollegiate and elite athletes who sought medical attention for lower back pain, 32% of whom were rowers. They found that both female and male rowers had a greater likelihood of sustaining a disk herniation and had a greater incidence of multiple disc level involvement than other athletes. Overall, they concluded that lower back pain in young athletes are correlated highly with lumbar spine abnormalities, particularly for rowers, and that techniques and training methods must decrease stress on the lumbar spine.